My Iona
News
All News
Events
All Events

Faculty Senate Minutes, November 30, 2023

Present: A. Rosenfeld (Chair), B. Gaines (Secretary), C. Carlson, K. Engemann, J. Haber, M. Higgins, A. Howerton-Fox, L. Ivanov, Y. Kang, A. Kelso, J. Klein, H. Park, S. Petrovic, A. Qayyum

Excused: G. Barry, D. Brophy, C. Dougherty, G. Grimaldi, D. Gunn, N. Kya

A. Rosenfeld called the meeting to order at 3:40 pm. Quorum was met.

Announcements

  • The University will be sending out an announcement Dec 1 inviting tenured faculty with at least 20 years of full-time continuous service and who are 65 years or older as of Aug 31, 2024 to participate in a voluntary retirement incentive opportunity.

Sub-Committee Updates

Compensation: Still working on gathering information. Subcommittee will meet soon and decide on appropriate steps (emailing HR, survey, etc.)

Constitution: Reconvene next semester. Main revisions have been shared.

Discussion Item: University Council Constitution

Clarification of University Council constitution changes voted on last year. Aaron and Dean will work with Mary Ellen Callaghan to get final approval.

Enrollment management committee not meeting. Kevin O’Sullivan has already taken steps to combine enrollment management and student life into one committee. The Faculty Senate expressed serious concerns about this change, for a number of reasons including:

  • Procedural problem (the University Council Constitution establishes the enrollment management committee)
  • Concerns about conflating the roles of the two committees; even if they’re under one director now, there are different questions to focus o and committee input is needed on both sets of issues.
  • The composition of the two committees being different is an issue, as the Student Life committee (which has been meeting) has much smaller faculty representation.
  • Faculty should have a voice when it comes to enrollment management decisions since curriculum is impacted, even if it is in an advisory capacity.
  • Shared governance process is important.
  • There were other concerns brought up regarding recent enrollment initiatives from senators, including specific issues with the Fine and Performing Arts programs vs. the Performing Arts Extracurricular programs.

Action Item: Seating Faculty Speaker/Valedictorian Committee

Motion to approve the 3 self-nominees (Dean Defino, Rachana Umashankar, and Steve Jarmon) passed.

Action Item: Seating Faculty Awards Committee

Motion to approve the 2 self-nominees (Ning Gao and Dean Defino) passed.

Aaron will reach out to NYPISHS to solicit someone to fill the third spot, to be voted on by email.

Update and Action Item: Adele Stanley, Assistant Professor, Nursing, has volunteered. Please see separate email for vote.

Discussion Item: Committee Composition

Bret Sanner (Chair of CAA) had suggested CAA take advantage of having clinical or adjunct faculty on the committee. There was discussion over potential conflict of interest those positions may face on some committees (such as CAA).

Clarification that clinical faculty are full-time faculty, typically on renewable contracts while adjunct faculty are part-time, paid by the course. There are different types of clinical faculty, and specific responsibilities are at the discretion of the respective Dean.

Question of whether to include language defining role of clinical faculty was discussed, including numbers/percentages. Currently, a visiting professor serves on CCC right now.

Consensus was reached on the following: since the Senate still makes faculty appointments to all standing committees, so long as there is awareness of concerns that might arise from faculty in these roles on major committees it can be addressed via the selection process; therefore, Senate will leave as is for now.